


Wanderer

by MissPlacemat (GraarPlacemat)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Blood and Gore, Character Death, Future Fic, Illnesses, M/M, Series Spoilers, Suicide mention, Vomiting, a singular use of ableist language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-08
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-12 06:46:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2099589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraarPlacemat/pseuds/MissPlacemat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years into the future, Eren Jaeger and Jean Kirschstein have won a war - at a terrible cost. Despite this, perhaps they can find solace in one another... Or perhaps they are doomed to be alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wanderer

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a major project that I've been working on over the past month, inspired by a certain song. I would like to offer special thanks to Maggie of the blog imagineerejean for all her help and support!  
> Before you read this fic, I'd like to issue a warning that it does have some pretty graphic content. I don't think it's that bad - I didn't go into explicit detail in most situations - but it's there, so please be careful!!  
> EDIT: I have removed the song lyrics from the equation. I apologize profusely to anyone who felt uncomfortable regarding those!!

Water. Purification droplets. Extra canteens. Check.

A week’s worth of dried meats and fruits. Hunting-grade bow and arrow. Check.

Stationery. Charcoal. Maps of the small amounts of territory they’d already explored. Check.

Gun. Ammunition. 3D maneuver gear. Check.

Permission to leave? No check there, but that wasn’t stopping him.

"Think you can handle all this baggage, Clyde?" Eren quietly asked his favorite horse, patting him gently on the forehead, receiving a soft whinny in return. "Sorry to wake you up, boy."

"Still talking to the horses, I see," announced a new voice. Eren cursed his fate, smiling a curious, resigned grin all the while.

Turning toward the voice’s origin, Eren replied, “Better this horse than the one that just barged in on us.”

Commander Kirschstein, clad in his civilian attire, rolled his eyes. “What are you doing here at this time of night, Eren? We’ve got a meeting about the charting mission at seven hundred hours.”

Eren didn’t answer, instead opting to turn his face away and fiddle with the straps on his luggage. Jean caught on soon enough, from glancing over Eren’s 3D maneuver gear, uniform, fully prepped horse, and extensive supplies.

"Hold on - you’re leaving? But Eren—"

"I know exactly what’s gonna happen," Eren snapped, "You and me and Sasha and Her Majesty, we’re all gonna put our best argument forward, we’re all gonna fight as hard as we can, and you know what Parliament’s gonna do? Postpone their decision. Again."

"Eren, we don’t know that. For all we know -"

"And then, next time, it’ll be the autumnal meeting, and even if by some chance they say yes, by the time we have all our volunteers and supplies it’ll be too cold to go anywhere. I’m going, Jean, and I’m not waiting for anyone." **  
**

"Eren," Jean sighed, searching for words to persuade him, "think…think how much it’ll hurt the rest of our cases, if you ditch now. If you leave, the rest of us could be delayed an entire year." **  
**

"What if you’re not, though?" Eren countered, "What if I come back with so much evidence, so many stories to tell, that they can’t say no? I’ll be gone for two months at most, right on time for the next meeting of parliament, we can get their approval to go again in spring—"

"Or you could die out there! Alone! Maybe the titans are gone, but we have no clue what else is waiting for us! And have you considered that this is treason? What if you come back and they don’t even let you talk before throwing you in jail?"

"Historia can—"

"I know she’s the queen and I know she’s our comrade, Eren, but even she can’t save your ass if you do something unforgivable, and to some people, this is exactly that."

"I’m going," Eren fumed, "and if that becomes a problem, I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now, Jean, I just…" He trailed off, biting his lip, and the pained look on his face brought Jean up short. "It’s for them, Jean," Eren sniffed. "They can’t go, so I have to."

"You mean…"

"Mikasa’s dead," Eren reminded him, wincing even as the words fell from his lips, "Armin’s…frozen. They were supposed to be coming with me. And all our other comrades are either…like them, or have some duty, like being queen or administrator or senator, and they can’t come. The only one I’m waiting on…the only one I’d be taking anyway…is you." He trained his gaze on Jean’s face. **  
**

Jean froze under the intensity of Eren’s eyes. For a long moment, he contemplated the statement. “You mean—go with you?”

Eren nodded shortly, not turning his eyes away for even the most fleeting of moments.

All too quickly, Jean found himself saying, “I…I can’t. I have…”

He trailed off.

Eren nodded again, slowly this time, his eyes dropping to stare at his boots. “I see,” he mumbled. “Well…that’s your choice.” Stiffly, he straightened his back, looked at Jean again, and saluted. “I’ll do my best in your honor, sir, and for the glory of mankind.”

Jean only watched in awe as Eren slid his foot into Clyde’s stirrup and heaved himself onto the horse’s back. As Eren gave him one last intense gaze, he said, weakly, “Do you…need help? Getting past the guards?”

"No, Jean," Eren replied, gentle but still firm. "You go to bed and pretend we didn’t see each other tonight. I don’t want you getting your reputation ruined for assisting a traitor."  **  
**

Jean tried to argue against this. He really did. He opened his mouth, wanting to say that he’d do it, only for Eren, a million times over, that Eren meant more to him than any single person ever had, that, screw it, he’d go, he’d follow Eren into the wilderness and forfeit his status forever.

But Eren smiled so sweetly down at him, saying so kindly, “I’ll see you when I get back,” as if he was just going down the street to the market, that Jean choked up and all he could do was extend his arm for a handshake.

Eren reciprocated, squeezing Jean’s hand too tightly the way he always did, and suddenly Jean was alone.

He remained for a long minute, stunned by how quickly that conversation had come and gone. Just like Eren to drop a bomb like that and then…leave.

He probably hadn’t wanted anybody to stop him, Jean supposed. He’d probably been preparing for this for ages and hadn’t wanted to give Jean the time to talk him out of it. Yet…still, Jean felt a stinging sensation in his chest at the idea that Eren hadn’t told him, might even have left without ever saying a word to him if he’d been given the chance.

-

Trotting the horse down toward the Survey Corps’s barricade, Eren hoped and prayed that nobody would take notice of his extra baggage. Yes, he was a superior officer to most, if not all, of those standing guard, and he didn’t have to tell them a damn thing if he didn’t feel the inclination, but it would be terribly inconvenient if they reported his status to any of the lesser Corporals before he was well out of the area.

He reached the boundary, receiving an enthusiastic salute from several of the impressively many recruits the Survey Corps had received since the fall of the titans. He smiled mildly back at them, offering a salute of his own and an, “At ease, friends,” before listening to their report and going on his way down the line. Nothing particularly pressing—not that there usually was, these days. What was the parliament thinking, refusing to allow them to venture past the boundaries the walls used to define?

He received similar treatment at several other outposts before finding a stretch where he could cross the invisible boundary between him and the wilderness of what used to be the interior of Wall Maria without being immediately noticed by the cadets posted up and down the row. He slowed the horse to a walk, hoping more subdued motion would attract less attention, and urged him across the small clearing between their current location and the forest.

Eren almost couldn’t believe it when he reached the trees without anyone calling out to him, asking what he was doing or where he was going. If he’d known it was this easy getting past the barricade, he would have reported it to Jean ages ago - and for this reason, he was glad he hadn’t. He continued the walking pace, letting Clyde pick his way over the roots, knowing that the forest was narrow here and he would be able to canter for a while to put some distance between himself and the boundary once he’d gotten through this. No galloping, though - it was best to preserve Clyde’s and his own stamina for as long as possible.

He bent over Clyde’s neck, avoiding incoming branches as best he could, and felt a breathless sort of exhilaration. He’d done it; he was outside Wall Rose for the first time in a long, desperate year, for the first time since the titans had been eradicated. He would find the ocean. He would do it for Armin, for Mikasa, for his mother, and for all the comrades he’d lost over the last twelve years. **  
**

Thankfully, he quickly found a (somewhat unkempt, but still usable) path that allowed him to trot for a while, and he sat up straight, trusting Clyde to follow it without objection. It was probably best to stay off the paths once he reached more even ground, as he was fairly certain that those would be the areas probed first if and when a search party was sent after him. For the time being, however, he would allow himself this small comfort.

-

Jean lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening to the steady chatter of cadets below his window, trying not to listen to anything, trying to coax his mind into sleep.

Every moment was another regret. Why hadn’t he stopped Eren? Why hadn’t he considered how Historia and Sasha would react when they showed up to find him gone? How was he going to get through the meeting without giving something away? Why couldn’t he just have abandoned his responsibilities and gone with him?

He sent up a silent prayer for Eren, to whatever god would listen, and rolled over, firmly shutting his eyes.

-

There was no pace Eren liked better than the canter.

The wind streamed through Eren’s hair as he soared through the air, feeling the rising sun burn through the morning mist to shine upon the right side of his face. He was squinting to dissuade the brightness, knowing that the sun would soon be high enough not to cause him any bother and willing to deal with the annoyance for as long as that took.

He was already glad for the razor he’d packed in his bags, feeling the itch of stubble blooming over his face and neck. Once he stopped for the day, the first thing he would do was find a stream he could shave in without wasting his drinking water.

He quickly checked the needlessly expensive analog watch he’d received from Jean for his twenty-fifth birthday, seeing that it was five o’clock on the dot. Three and a half hours, he’d been traveling. Three and a half hours of freedom. Three and a half hours since he’d seen Jean.

On any normal day, this would be when he’d have woken up. He would’ve gone for a run, come back to shower, gotten dressed, and visited Jean for his orders, or sometimes just for a chat. Jean would be awake by now. If he’d ever gotten back to sleep.

Eren wondered, fleetingly, why Jean had been awake in the first place, why he’d come to see Eren off. He couldn’t have known Eren would be in the stables, could he?

He’d probably been nervous. He’d always been struck by insomnia when he had a big event planned for the next day, ever since they were trainees. He would stir and toss the entire night if he didn’t get up and take a walk to tire himself out. That was probably it. It was a big deal to them even without the pressure of convincing parliament on their shoulders - it wasn’t every day they got to see the other two remaining members of their trainee corps, after all.

This caught on Eren’s mind for a moment. He couldn’t have waited one more day? One more day, so he could see Historia and Sasha one more time before he left? Maybe even tell them where he was going, so that they wouldn’t worry?

No, no, it was best that as few people knew about this as possible. He didn’t need more of his friends trying to talk him down from the idea.

Maybe Jean would tell them. At the very least, Eren hoped he would be able to convince them that he’d be okay.

He gazed into the distance as he came to the top of one ridge, savoring the view, wondering if he’d have been able to see Wall Maria from here if it were still up. He’d gone North on purpose, knowing he wouldn’t have been able to cope with seeing Shiganshina as a wreck again, all his pleas to be allowed to rebuild his hometown having been dismissed or ignored altogether. Too much risk, he’d been told the handful of times he’d been dignified with an answer. We don’t know what’s out there. We’ll take it slowly, explore bit by bit.

 _Bit by bit, my ass,_  he thought to himself.  _I’ll be dead by the time they let us get beyond Wall Maria._ _ **  
**_

Glancing back to make sure they weren’t making a trail through the tall grass, Eren urged Clyde forward.

-

“Milady,” Jean greeted her, dropping to one knee as she approached.

“Your courtesy is appreciated, sir,” Historia replied, in the practiced tones she’d adopted since obtaining the throne. “But please, as you were.” When he glanced up, she gave him a little wink. Familiarity was what they preferred, but so long as they were in Parliament’s northern Rose building, they would have to be more formal. More relaxed greetings would be reserved for afterward, as they awaited Parliament’s announcement. **  
**

As he stood, the queen glanced around, as surreptitiously as she could. “I would have expected Lance Corporal Jaeger to be with you, Commander,” she observed.

“I apologize, your majesty. I haven’t seen him yet today.”

Historia gave him a long, searching look, and Jean knew straightaway that she didn’t believe a word. He reached up and swiped his right thumb over his chin, a gesture they’d adopted to tell each other  _We can talk through this later._

With a small nod of assent, Historia turned and walked past him, greeting the other Commanders and their entourages before stepping into the rooms of Parliament ahead of everyone else, as was the custom. Her own people followed her in, and Jean bobbed his head at Sasha and Hanji as they both passed. Sasha smiled nervously at him, never having been as conscious of formalities as he or Historia had, and then frowned curiously when she noticed Eren’s absence. Hanji, to their credit, kept a straight face - on the side of their face that was still intact, anyway - and returned the nod before continuing on their way.  **  
**

Before long, the military representatives were called in, and Jean followed Rico and Marlowe, who in turn were following the hunched form of General Zackley. The ranking officers each branch had brought along filed in after them.

Jean knew that his Corporals, without Eren there to inspire and motivate them, would make for a less than convincing argument on the part of the Survey Corps - after all, it had always been Eren who’d been good with words, hadn’t it? Jean took a moment to remember his face, back when he would break into his self-righteous rants, back when they were trainees and he thought he knew right from wrong. It took a lot more to set his eyes alight like that these days.

 _He’s not dead,_ he reminded himself. _He may be a suicidal bastard, but he’s harder to kill than a cockroach._

He forced himself to contemplate their chances of winning the case again. Eren was gone, yes, but since the spring session, they’d managed to get the Garrison on their side. They also had the news of the recent graduates of the 116th trainee division and the vast percentage that had joined the Survey Corps in the hopes of getting to explore beyond the walls. If anything could make the will of the people perfectly clear, that had to be it.

As he settled into his seat, just to the right of the queen’s cabinet, he glanced over the faces of the Parliament members. It was the same portrait as ever: some hopeful, some skeptical, some mirthful, and most just plain bored. A tough crowd, but nothing he wasn’t used to.

 _Eren,_  he begged silently,  _Give me your strength._

_-_

Eren made up for the dried food he’d eaten for his late breakfast/early lunch by shooting a rabbit during a water break for Clyde. It wasn’t a clean shot, unfortunately—he wasn’t nearly as skilled as Sasha, despite the lessons she’d given him years ago and the practice he’d had on his own—but it was food and he was thankful.

He tied the rabbit to Clyde’s saddle before taking a few conservative sips from his own water skin. Looking into the distance again, he tried to estimate how long it would be before he reached the crumbling remains of Wall Maria. One hundred kilometers, plus some because he’d taken a slanting course to avoid detection, and mostly on flat ground…since he was taking a long day today, he could probably make it in four days, three if he was optimistic and determined enough. Assuming he gave himself sixty days, that would leave fifty-six to get to the ocean and back, plus resting days every fourth day to take stock and record his findings. Not bad.

He glanced at his watch again. Eleven. If it was a short meeting, they’d be wrapping up by now. Of course, there was also the possibility that it would take longer, in which case it was very possible that it would continue on into the wee hours of the morning. He hoped, for the sake of his friends’ sanity, that it wouldn’t come to that.

Bureaucracy. What a beautiful thing.

“Ready to go, boy?” he asked Clyde, patting the horse’s shoulder. He received an affectionate nuzzle in return.

He lifted himself into the saddle once more.

-

“Commander Kirschstein and Chief of Reparations Braus here to see you, Your Majesty,” announced Historia’s assistant from outside the door, having knocked and been told to state her business. **  
**

“Let them in,” Historia called, rubbing her eyes in exhaustion, leaning heavily on her desk. It wasn’t half as regal as the one kept in her private chambers back at Mitras, but she knew it had to be significantly more expensive and well-made than even the next best thing. It was, after all, intended for royalty, and despite her insistences that she did not need such extravagant tributes, her cabinet insisted even more sternly that if she didn’t use it, nobody else would. It would be a tragic waste for that to happen, in her opinion, and so she accepted the accommodations.

She ran a hand over the finely-grained wood. She never would have dreamed of this for herself when she was a child. The only thing that indicated this wasn’t all some dream come true was her ever more pressing responsibilities.

None of that now, though. Now was the time to greet her old friends.

The heavy wooden doors opened and then closed, and Sasha immediately made her opinion of the room known. “Holy  _shit,_ ” she gasped, looking around at the high ceilings, extravagant wall hangings, the king-sized bed. “And they said you’d be roughing it, Queenie.”

Historia rolled her eyes. “I’m fairly certain they’ve forgotten what situation I grew up in. Anyway, come in, sit down. Stay awhile.” She stood and ushered them over to a nice little sitting area, furnished with two sofas and a winged armchair. Historia took the armchair for herself, letting Jean and Sasha take their pick of what remained.

Sinking into one sofa, Jean spoke for the first time. “Nice dress,” he commented, looking over Historia’s attire.

“Isn’t it, though?”

“How d’you guys feel about all that?” Sasha asked, clearly referencing the meeting of Parliament they’d just attended. “I feel like they were a bit more receptive this time.”

“‘A bit’ being the operative term,” Jean replied, running a frustrated hand through his hair. “We still need a two-thirds majority to win the case, and I’m just not sure we’ve got that.”

“They’re holding off for reparations, though! And with the news I shared today - you know, commissions halting, my branch getting caught up and the monuments getting built and everything, yadda yadda—I think we have a good chance! Plus, you had some good arguments, too.”

“I’m no Eren, though,” Jean mumbled. The room fell quiet.

“Where is he?” Historia asked cautiously.

Jean awkwardly scratched his head. “I don’t really know how to say it. Especially since - well, we were just in Parliament over this…”

This took a moment to sink in.

“He _left?!_ ” Sasha exclaimed. “You mean—he’s gone, he went past the barricade?”

“Why didn’t you stop him?” Historia demanded.

“Look, I couldn’t stop him if I tried! You know how he gets! And he mentioned Armin and Mikasa, I just…I didn’t have the heart, okay? I couldn’t stop him. And I only found out this morning, if it had been any earlier, I would’ve told you, I swear. I saw him for maybe five minutes and then he left.”

“How have you been covering it up?” Historia asked quickly, “If you do this right, we could get him back without too much fault falling on him…”

“Oh, don’t,” Sasha sighed. “I mean…he’s wanted this so long. If he wants to become some weird…hermit, or whatever, let him.”

“What? No, that’s not what he’s doing. He’s gonna come back of his own volition,” Jean objected. “He told me - he wants to get some evidence to argue in our favor. He’s gonna be back in a couple months.”

Historia blinked slowly. “He can’t do that, Jean,” she explained, fighting to remain calm, “At least, he can’t admit to it. Think—He could get himself killed—”

“Besides,” Jean interrupted tiredly, “He’s already been declared missing. After the meeting, the other Corporals were discussing his absence and the border cadets reported that they’d seen him last night—they’ve even pinpointed where he got past the line, from which posts he did and didn’t visit. The forms should be coming to you anytime now, requesting permission to go after him.”

It took a long moment for her to come up with an answer. “Goodness,” Historia murmured, heart sinking, “I’ll have to sign them.”

“No, no, you won’t,” Sasha mused, contemplating the issue, “We can scrape together some excuse. Lose the papers, or something. Tell them you don’t wanna waste the resources.”

“I like that,” Jean supported her. “Tell them we’re up to our necks in… Something, give them some excuse for why we just don’t have the people to send after him.”

Sasha snapped her fingers. “Jean, increase border security! That’ll be our excuse! We’re gonna put everything into making sure nobody else makes it past. We’ll also know immediately when he gets back, so we can get him before anybody else does.”

Jean looked to Historia for her reaction. She nodded slowly. “We’ll do it,” she told them. “But we need to get Jean out of here. I don’t want you to get too involved in boosting the borders—They may begin to suspect foul play.”

“I was gonna invite him to see the new memorial, anyway,” Sasha told her brightly. Turning to Jean, she informed him, “It’s beautiful, Jean. It’s for the 104th—The top ten, rather.”

Jean grimaced. “Is it that one you told me about in spring? The one with Annie?”

“They added a piece. I think you’ll like it.”

-

“Clyde,” Eren whispered, “look.”

Swinging one leg over the horse’s back, dropping down out of the saddle, he paced forward, one step, five steps, ten, and came to an abrupt halt.

“I knew we’d reach it today,” he mumbled, dropping slowly into a crouch, “But I thought we’d see it before…Well. Before we were already here.”

Wall Maria, the cage he’d been born trapped within, was nothing more than a miserable pile of rocks.

He was happy. He really was.

He would never understand why he broke into tears.

-

It couldn’t have been half the size of the real thing, but the terror Jean felt as he stared up into the face of Annie Leonhardt’s Titan form was as great as the first time he’d seen the real Female Titan.

The sculptor was a genius with their medium—whatever brilliant, reddish metal they’d crafted the monster and her prisoner from. It looked eerily similar to the contents of the giant crystal that still loomed over the ruins of Shiganshina, had ever since they’d finally made it to Eren’s basement, finally discovered the secret to defeating the titans, three years hence. The sculptor, who’d chosen to remain anonymous, must have seen the sketches Hanji had made after the battle.

Standing back and craning his neck, Jean could see the silhouette of the young man that the crouching titan cradled in her enormous hands; he could imagine the sight as he remembered it, the long-haired blond soldier bleeding, smashed brutally and displaying joints where joints did not exist on the human body. He would have died without help - and there was no help for him, where they’d been. Jean imagined that was why Annie had decided to encapsulate him in crystal.

It was a question he didn’t particularly like to contemplate, but found himself thinking about anyway. Why had Annie frozen herself with him? Had she really just not been able to bear the idea of being without him, like Mikasa had explained before finding herself in a painfully similar situation to Armin’s? Yes, he’d been the first to accuse Annie of being the female titan, but he’d also been the first to forgive her once she’d finally released herself from her original crystalline prison.

He dragged his eyes away from the gruesomely beautiful statue, looking instead at the ground between it and himself. Annie and Armin were encircled by plaques crafted from the same metal as them, embedded in the stone pavement. The one directly in front of them - and him - bore a familiar name.

Marco Bodt. His dates of birth and death were listed below his name, and those were followed by the words,  _The first of us to depart - The first to welcome us to Heaven._ _ **  
**_

Off to the right, Jean knew he’d find a plaque with his own name on it, and his birthday. No date of death, yet, and no quote. He knew the same was true of Eren’s plaque, beyond his, and Sasha’s, to the left of Connie’s.

“What do you think?” Sasha asked him. He gave her a long look.

“I hate it.”

-

It was the seventh day since he’d left humanity behind, third since crossing Wall Maria, and the first night that he could go to sleep knowing he wouldn’t have to immediately get going in the morning. Taking advantage of this, he completely unpacked his bags for the first time since leaving, counting up his supplies to make sure he hadn’t dropped anything.

He was missing one arrow for his bow, but he could easily make up for that by crafting a new one from wood and stone the next day. He opened up the first of his three notebooks and added this task to his agenda.

Since the book was already out, he made a quick list of events that had transpired since dawn that very day - it was only a brief description, since he liked to save the real storytelling for his third notebook. Once this was done, he clapped the first notebook shut and reached for his second.

He’d drawn up some quick sketches and pressed a couple plants that he hadn’t yet found in his reference book in the first few pages of this notebook. He only glanced through this one, knowing that he’d have time to add more detail to the drawings the next day. Finally, he picked up his third notebook, which he really hadn’t had much time to contribute to yet, aside from some short entries about what he’d seen the past few days.

He steadied his charcoal pencil, taking a moment to decide how he wanted to format this. Finally, Eren began to write.

_Commander Kirschstein,_

_I write this in the hope that we will someday see each other again, at which interval I will be able to present this as an easy explanation for what I’ve seen on my journey. Forgive the formality of my writings, for I would like to have this text available for observation by any party that expresses a wish._

_That aside, I have many things to tell you about today._

Eren paused a moment, staring down at the page, then scanning the cave he’d found to rest in for the night, gaze landing on Clyde, where he was tied up to a solitary branch that poked into their shelter.

“This is bullshit,” he informed the horse, tearing the page out of his journal and tossing it in the fire. He started writing again.

_Jean -_

_The world is amazing..._ _  
_

_-_

At Sasha’s insistence, Jean spent a week more in what used to be the interior, while she showed him how reparations were going and occasionally dragged him off the beaten path to give him a tour of the numerous other monuments that were going up at various points within the demolished walls.

There was one for the Ackermans—Levi and Mikasa, rather.

There was one for Commander Erwin.  **  
**

There was one for the young Titan Shifters, the children that had been forced to combat humanity.

There was one for Eren, Humanity’s Hope.

Most of these weren’t finished, or even close to being so. She would show him the blueprints, the metalworkers who were performing the operation, the sites where the monuments were going up.

“They’re doing one for Connie,” she told him, and that was the only one she didn’t try to say more about.

Jean didn’t press.

-

Eren’s hair grew fast, and it hadn’t occurred to him to get it trimmed before he left. On his sixteenth day outside Wall Rose, he was thoroughly regretting this lapse in insight.

The fact that it was hanging in his face was beside the point; it was also very thick, and very good at insulating his head. In winter, he supposed this would be a good thing, but it was currently the height of summer and he was tired of having to lift the sheet of hair from his neck just to cool off.

It was his third resting day, and if he didn’t do this now, he’d have to wait another three days - and the problem would likely be even worse by that point.

He propped his shaving mirror up against a rock at the small pond he’d found, encircled by long grass, just a stone’s throw from the quick lean-to he’d assembled against a nearby tree, and wiggled his razor between two fingers, contemplating the best way to execute this.

He’d originally figured he would just hack off the longest bits, but if he wanted to preserve his dignity, that might not be the ideal route - it was a razor, after all, and not particularly optimal for that purpose. The best he could hope for with that idea was a horrifically uneven and hideously humiliating hairstyle, the worst being a lost ear.

Hey, it did grow fast, right? If he shaved his head now, his hair would probably grow back by the time he got back to humanity in forty-four days. He nodded slowly. He didn’t like the buzzcut look, but at least no one would see him with it at its worst.

He reached up, pushed back his bangs, and aligned the razor with his hairline.

-

“Commander?”

Jean lifted his head, raising an eyebrow when he saw one of his least favorite subordinates, Liese Abel, saluting him. “Yes?” he asked stiffly. “What have you to report?”  **  
**

“Nothing, sir,” Corporal Abel replied.

“Really? Nothing? Nothing from the barricade, nothing from Parliament, nothing?”

“No, sir.”

“Then why are you in my office?”

Dropping her salute, Abel looked him in the eye—ooh, he hated how arrogant that look was, like she was so certain of something he couldn’t pinpoint—and drawled, “When are you gonna replace Lance Corporal Jaeger, sir?”

“Why do you ask?” Jean asked by way of reply, fighting to keep his disgust from showing. So this little punk thought she was gonna replace Eren, did she? He hadn’t even considered the action, and if he had, she would be very low on his list for ascension.

“Well, I was just talking with Squad Leader Cranston,” a vastly less irksome young lady, though Jean thought she could keep better company, “and we were thinking, hey, it must be pretty overwhelming work, running the Survey Corps without a second-in-command. We wanted to know when you were planning to make it easier on yourself. Sir.”  **  
**

“How considerate of her,” Jean said, deliberately ignoring both Abel’s participation and sarcasm. “Thank you for the recommendation. I’ll definitely consider her for the position. Do you have anything else?”

Abel’s eye twitched. “No, sir.”

“Then get out.”

She stood there for a second, looking as if she were going to say more, before reconsidering it, saluting him again, and departing.

Jean heaved a sigh, trying to turn his focus back to the reports on his desk. He had so much to go over, so many things happening with the new barricade scheduling, but his mind kept flitting back to the point Abel had raised.

He probably should replace Eren. Yes, he knew he was coming back - or at least hoped he would - but he was supposed to be pretending he didn’t.

He didn’t want to do it. Something about the action made him feel like he was killing Eren off in the process, condemning him to some awful death kilometers into the wilderness, to execution at the hands of the people he’d spent his life trying to protect.

A temporary measure - that’s what he would do. He lifted himself from his seat, approached the door, and poked his head out, calling to his secretary, “Horst?”

The blond-haired youth jumped. “Y-yes, sir?”

“Get me Cranston,” Jean began, and quickly added, “And Karademas and Gardezi. Hawke, too, if you can get him.”

“Yes, sir!”

He would have them split the responsibilities of the position, while maintaining their own at the same time. That way, he wouldn’t give any specific person the promise of rising a rank or two, and also would be able to observe which one took the most initiative so that if the time came that he needed a permanent replacement, he would have one.

 _Eren won’t die,_  he reminded himself.

He had to repeat it a couple times more before he believed it.

-

Wake up. Eat Breakfast. Brush Clyde. Saddle up. Clear area. Leave. Ride until sunset. Stop for new sights. Record findings. Eat dinner. Sleep. Repeat.

It was a polished, practiced schedule, and it was harder to do every single day.

It wasn’t for lack of physical strength; Eren was feeling fit as a fiddle, though for several days he couldn’t begin to guess what else the problem could be. It was only one day, as he crouched next to a stream, that the issue began to dawn on him.

“Look, Clyde,” he said, “Wild carrots.”

As he harvested the roots, rinsed them with water, and stored them, he continued talking. “We can save these for a few days, can’t we, boy? Maybe have them as a reward when we find the ocean. We can’t be that far anymore, right?”

The horse swished his tail.

Eren stopped talking for a long time.

“I miss people,” he mumbled, running an absentminded hand over the peach fuzz on his head.

That night, he wrote a long letter to Jean. The fact that he couldn’t send it just made him feel worse.

-

“Commander, Commander! Wait!”

Jean turned his head to see a breathless Gardezi racing up to where he was sitting on his horse, flailing their hands to capture his attention. “What? Make it quick, I’m going to patrol the barricade.”

Finally having caught up, Gardezi came to rest, panting, before they answered his question. “P-Parliament,” they stammered, “They’ve reached a conclusion.”

Jean stared blankly at his subordinate. “On what?”

“The charting expedition,” came the excited reply. “They’re going to let us go!”

“What? But that got put on hold!”

Gardezi shrugged. “Well, we got approval. Hawke and Cranston and I figured you needed to know as soon as possible.”

Jean swung one leg over his horse’s back and dropped to the ground. “Thank you, Affi. Please do patrol for me while I investigate.”

Gardezi nodded and saluted him. “Godspeed, sir.”

-

It was as Eren was walking atop a cliff, leading Clyde behind him, that he glanced up and caught sight of a deep blue ring on the horizon, stopping dead in his tracks. He wondered briefly what it might be before the answer came to him in a flash of comprehension.

The ocean.

A stirring began in his chest, spreading through his body, giving him energy while also filling him with something completely unexpected - sorrow.  **  
**

 _That’s ridiculous_ , he told himself.  _Be happy. This is something to celebrate._

“Let’s celebrate, Clyde,” Eren muttered, and his voice still sounded oddly muted. He tried again; “Let’s celebrate!”

They stopped walking long enough for Eren to dig out the wild carrots he’d dug up a few days before - a favorite snack for both of them, and an appropriate reminder that they still needed to keep their energy up for the next few miles so that they could reach the shore before the daylight died. He offered one to Clyde, who sniffed it and refused.

“You sure don’t like eating in the middle of the day, do you, boy?” Eren said, “Well, I’ll make sure to save you some.”

With that, he bit in. A little bland, but not bad.

They continued walking and Eren went on snacking on the carrots until his stomach started cramping - just after biting into a third one. He scowled with mild confusion, but put the carrots away and forced himself to continue walking.

Soon, the ground was even enough that he could get back on Clyde’s back - only to slither off of it five minutes later so that he could vomit violently into the bushes.

He clung miserably to a sapling, mind racing, wondering what sort of sickness had come to haunt him at the worst possible moment—how, why, when…

No. No, no, no, not this, anything but this.

He frantically ripped one of the sacks on Clyde’s back open, pawing through it, left that one and opened a second - there it was, the plant book. He hastily removed it, hands trembling slightly, and he tried to stop them, told himself to calm down, but they just kept on shaking, and even his teeth began to chatter, his heart fluttering uncomfortably.

He flipped the book open, paging quickly through until—

There. Wild carrot, just like the plant he’d just eaten, he’d be fine, it was just a carrot. He slowed down, scanning his eyes down the page, becoming frustrated at how hard it was to read with his hands still aquiver - stupid Eren, he knew it was just a carrot, right? Why was he still shaking like a leaf?

And then he saw it - “The stem and leaves of Daucus Carota are covered entirely in fine hairs” - and he was scrambling all over again, plunging his hand into the bag he’d kept the offending root vegetables in, fisting a handful of leaves and yanking them out.

Hairless. Completely hairless, every single one.

He grabbed at the book again, staring at the bottom of the page at the “related species” section, flipping pages until -

Cicuta Virosa. Water Hemlock.

One bite could kill an adult.

He’d eaten two full taproots.

-

Jean bumped into Cranston on his way up the slope leading to the barracks. She began to explain the situation.

“I know, I know, Parliament’s letting us go, now give me the details.”

She relaxed her salute, keeping her back straight as was her tendency, and began. “They re-opened the debate for private discussion yesterday morning and came to a conclusion an hour ago. The official announcement was posted fifteen minutes ago in the barracks, but the long and short of it is that we’re being allowed a three-month-long expedition, with seventy-five members, come springtime. They’ve also decided that, if and when Lance Corporal Jaeger comes back, he will be pardoned.”

Jean’s heart soared. Eren would be back in time for them to go into the world together. He could show them what he’d seen on his own, show them all his favorite things, and he wouldn’t be alone, God, he wouldn’t be alone.

-

Why now.

Why, when he was so close, had even seen it, would arrive within an hour of riding.

Why was he going to die alone?

Eren clung desperately to Clyde’s neck, forcing his convulsing limbs to cooperate as best he could, though the effort meant little—he fell off completely several times, got off to vomit several times more, and every time it was harder to get back in the saddle. Clyde was becoming skittish with Eren’s odd behavior, but when Eren told the horse to move, it moved.

He would get there. He’d promised Armin, he’d promised Mikasa.

He’d promised himself.

-

Jean had excused himself without realizing why. At least, not until he was alone in his office.

Pressing his back to the closed door, he slumped to the floor and cried tears of joy.

-

Listening to the agony that clawed at his stomach almost drowned out the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Once he’d heard it, however, it was the only sound in the entire world, and the only pain was the gaping hole where his heart used to be.

He opened his eyes, seeing the world spin, seeing the golden sand below him and the deep, dark, verdant blue water expanding out, out, impossibly far, and he slid off Clyde’s back to land, roughly, in the sand.

He lay on his side, and thank god his tremors were having a stiller spell because he could stare in agonized awe at the breath-taking tableau formed by the five o’clock sun, the ocean, and the sand. Clyde was there, too, and Eren tried to ignore him because soon enough the horse would likely be as doomed as he was.

Eren could already see the silhouettes of his deceased loved ones forming a line, a trail that would lead him to heaven, following the light of the setting sun, and was struck by how many more of them were waiting for him here than there were back home. And then he knew why his hands had suddenly gone still.

“You’re not dead yet,” his mother told him.

Armin and Annie crouched beside him, hands linked. “We’re not dead yet,” they reminded him.

There were tears and saliva running down his cheek. If he wasn’t dead, why couldn’t he move his arms to wipe them away?

“Don’t do it,” Connie begged. “Not when you’re almost there.”

He was already here. He’d already found the ocean.

“Don’t do it,” Reiner sobbed. “Not when you have the choice.”

“Not when you have the choice,” Bertholdt echoed.

There was no choice. He was gone already. He’d eaten the hemlock.

“The Titans never got you,” Ymir jabbed.

“The humans never got you,” Levi scoffed.

Erwin shook his head sadly. “Just a handful of roots.”

So, what? No shame in that. No shame in making a mistake.

Marco sat next to his head, rubbing a gentle, caring hand over the fuzz of his hair. “You’re just like I was, Eren,” he whispered, and somehow the hand on his head turned scaldingly hot.

“We both died alone.”

And the fire Marco had placed inside him took hold, blazing down his spine, shuddering through his limbs.

He was dying. Alone.

Nevermind that he was being watched over by legions of fallen soldiers.

Nevermind that he was accompanied by one lousy horse.

He was in land completely unexplored by humanity, hundreds of kilometers from the nearest hint of a person, and no one would ever know how he’d died, or when, or why.

“What can I do, Marco?” he wailed, “I don’t wanna die alone. I don’t wanna be alone forever.”

Marco bent down. Kissed his forehead. Whispered in his ear,

“Then go back.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

Jean froze under the intensity of Eren’s eyes. For a long moment, he contemplated the statement. “You mean - go with you?”

Eren nodded shortly, not turning his eyes away for even the most fleeting of moments.

All too quickly, Jean found himself saying, “I…I can’t. I have…”

He trailed off.

Eren nodded again, slowly this time, his eyes dropping to stare at his boots. “I see,” he mumbled. “Well… That’s your choice.” Stiffly, he straightened his back, looking at Jean again, and saluted. “I’ll do my best in your honor, sir, and for the glory of mankind.”

Jean only watched in awe as Eren slid his foot into Clyde’s stirrup and heaved himself onto the horse’s back. As Eren gave him one last intense gaze, he said, weakly, “Do you… Need help? Getting past the guards?”

“No, Jean -” Eren began, and quickly cut off, brow furrowing in confusion. He stared vacantly at a point just beyond Jean, mouth hanging open slightly.

Jean frowned, turning his head to see what Eren was looking at and finding nothing. He turned back. “Eren? What’s wrong?”

Eren blinked, and it was as if a spell had been broken. He shook himself a little, muttering, “Uh…woah. Sorry about that, I guess I’m not used to getting so little sleep.” As he said the words, he seemed dazed, and looked at Jean through clouded eyes.

Jean felt himself soften in understanding. “Are you sure you need to go tonight? I could give you a day to rest up before you leave. You know, tell people you’re sick or that you were busy rehearsing your argument for Parliament with me or something.”

Biting his lip, Eren considered this. He shook his head. “No, if I don’t go tonight, I don’t think I ever will. Thanks, though. I guess… I’ll just get going,” he ended the statement lamely.

The two made eye contact, and suddenly, Jean knew he couldn’t let that happen. “No, you…” he stammered, and Eren looked at him. “You can’t—just wait, okay? I’ll get my stuff.”

“Get your…Jean, what are you talking about?”

“I’m coming, okay? Let me get my survival gear, and maybe some food or something, I don’t know, just - give me ten…fifteen minutes, I need fifteen minutes, and then, whatever I’ve got, I’ll take back here and we can go. Okay? We’ll go together.”

Eren’s mouth hung open.

“Eren?”

“You - you don’t have to come, just because I asked you,” Eren mumbled.

“Well, I am. Hang tight.”

With that, Jean dashed up the slope towards his living quarters.

-

The two of them made their way down toward the barricade atop their horses, Eren distractedly wondering why Jean had suddenly decided to come with him. He’d given nothing away as he’d come back down the hill with two heavily laden saddlebags under his arms, only telling Eren to shut up, that they needed to hurry if they wanted to get out of there.

“Are people gonna want to know what we’re doing with all this baggage?” Eren muttered, just loud enough for Jean to hear. “And how will we get past the outposts?”

“Quiet about all that,” Jean bid him, “I know where we can get out. As for the rest…we’ll play it by ear.”

“We could always hit them with the old ‘We’re the first and second-in-command of the Survey Corps, how dare you ask about our business’, I suppose,” Eren sighed, and Jean chuckled.

“That always works.”

They’d reached the boundary and the first outpost, and the moment the first group of recent recruits caught sight of them, there was a scramble to reach their feet and salute their commander. Jean gave them a curt nod, calling out, “I trust all is going well?” and receiving several enthusiastic affirmations in return, and moved on without pause. Eren saluted them and followed.  **  
**

This was the reason, he supposed, that Jean was Commander and not him; despite the fact that he’d certainly been knocked down a few pegs since their time as trainees, he’d never quite lost the air of sophistication he’d always possessed. He was quite above the cadets, yes, but no longer in such a way that it made the less talented resentful. He was poised, a role model, whereas Eren often had trouble remembering that he was supposed to be in command of these people and would treat them as if he were still one of them. It was inappropriate conduct as the Captain, and it would be even more so if he were Commander.

He had the opportunity to watch Jean address his subordinates several times more as they moved down the line, watch his movements, his behaviors, and it was so different from the Jean he’d come to know yet so familiar all the same.

Eventually, the pattern changed; when he’d finished greeting the next group, Jean added, “Lance Corporal Jaeger and I are going past the border, now, but please don’t let it concern you. We’ll just be watching from the shelter of the trees to see how our subordinates behave when they don’t realize we’re there. Please do us a favor and don’t forewarn any of the others.”

With a barrage of salutes, the cadets dismissed them, and Jean and Eren crossed into the trees on the other side of the clearing. Once they were out of earshot, Eren hissed, “Wow. I could never have thought of that. That was good.”

Jean ducked beneath a low-hanging branch and smiled back at him. “Really? I didn’t think so. I guess I’m just used to covering stuff up.”

Eren just shook his head in disbelief and continued following the man he’d grown to trust so well.

-

Jean kept glancing behind him, back at Eren, who was still respectfully, cautiously trailing along in back of him as if they were still inside Wall Rose, and forced himself not to roll his eyes at the behavior. Instead, he took in the look of wonder on Eren’s face as they trotted down the path, turning his head back and forth over and over in the hopes of taking in absolutely everything there was to see, eyes wide with excitement.

He grinned. Eren Jaeger truly was a twenty-seven-year-old child.

“You know,” he said, and Eren looked up toward him, “you don’t have to be my second-in-command out here. We can just be… Eren Jaeger and Jean Kirschstein, if you want to.”

Eren squinted for a second before understanding. “Okay, then, Jean Kirschstein,” he replied cheerfully, and leaned forward, speeding his horse up so that he and Jean were level.

-

There was no pace Eren liked better than the canter, and it was even more wonderful when somebody was doing it with him.

Every once in a while, he glanced to his right, watching the light of the rising sun frame Jean’s face, watching his hair stream in the wind, and that image would burn itself into Eren’s mind until he just couldn’t help but look over again. The sun was blinding, at this angle, but he couldn’t help but appreciate how it brought the straight line of Jean’s nose and the sharp angle of his jaw into clear relief.

Time passed, yet it felt miraculously as if everything were frozen, as if his entire life had led him inevitably to this point, and that everything beyond this point was a gift from some higher power. He was free, he was flying, and he had somebody he had known practically all his life at his side. With a beam on his face, he stretched his neck and risked closing his eyes with pleasure for a moment.

When he opened them, he found himself making eye contact with Jean, and time seemed to slow even further as he watched Jean watch him, panting, rising and falling to the rhythm of his horse’s hoofbeats. Time caught up to them, though, and Jean turned his face away.

“What were you doing there tonight, Jean?” Eren called, not sure what he was saying, or why he was saying it, even as the words spilled from his lips.

“Can’t talk now, Eren,” Jean answered him. “I’ll bite my fucking tongue off.”

Eren let out a laugh and allowed the conversation to drop into the grass behind them.

-

It was only when they’d stopped riding, letting Clyde and Jean’s own horse, Aurore, take a drink and stalking through the undergrowth in an attempt at finding some additional food for themselves, that Jean asked Eren a question. It sprung up in his mind when Eren brought out his bow and arrow and explained, as if Jean didn’t already know, “Sasha taught me. I’m not nearly as good as her, but I can keep us well-stocked.”

Sasha. Dear old Sasha, who would have expected them to join her and Historia in parliament today. “You didn’t happen to tell her you were leaving, did you?” Jean asked.

Eren just looked at him, turning his gaze away from his stock of arrows. “No,” he said, quietly. “I didn’t want her to try and stop me. Or Historia.”

“Or me?” Jean guessed.

“Or you.”

They both hovered there, in the midst of getting hunting supplies out of their saddlebags. Jean had been hurt, originally, when he’d thought that Eren had been keeping secrets from him in preparing to leave without saying anything, but now that he realized just how little Eren had told anyone… It was an odd comfort, but it was there.

 _It’s not like he owes it to me,_  he told himself mutely, turning his attention back to his things.  _I’m just his comrade. He doesn’t need to tell me anything._

Upon rooting through his bag, he discovered the first of several packing mistakes he’d made in his hurry. “You don’t happen to have an extra bow,” he ventured, flinching even as he said the words, “Do you?”

“Don’t tell me,” Eren groaned, approaching him, looking over his shoulder at his supplies. “Fuck. Well, I’ve got a hunting rifle, I guess, but you’ll have to stay far away from me so you don’t scare my prey off.”

Jean frowned at him. “How will I know how you’re doing? I don’t want you getting eaten by something when we’re doing stuff apart. I’d rather not have the gun at all.”

Eren rolled his eyes. “No titans anymore, Jean. If anything comes at me, I’ll have the advantage. And we could set up a signal or something - not flares, maybe just a whistle.”

He worried at his lip, trying to think up an argument but not finding one. Eren took his silence as assent and strolled up to where he’d tied Clyde, getting out the rifle and stocking it before coming back to Jean. Instead of handing him the rifle, Eren stood there for a second, looking down at the gun in his hands.

“I hope they say yes this time,” he muttered. “Even though we’re not there.”

Jean felt his mouth open, felt his jaw hang there, idle, lacking in things to say. He stepped closer to Eren, reached out, and gripped his shoulders.

“They’ll say yes,” he said firmly. “If not this time, they’ll do it eventually. We—we might not be there to help right now, but they’ve got the Garrison, and the new recruits. And soon, they’ll have us, and our stories, and whatever we collect on the way back. It might take months or years, but they’ll say it. We’ve gotten out of the cage. Everybody else will, too.”

They were standing close, and Eren was smiling weakly up at him.

-

It wasn’t a clean kill, not like anything Sasha could have gotten, but Eren had shot a rabbit. He’d heard a gunshot, too, between whistling back and forth with Jean, but he’d arrived back with the horses first and he couldn’t be sure whether Jean had caught anything.

He tied the rabbit to Clyde’s saddle before putting his fingers to his lips and whistling loudly, one long, high note, and stopping to listen. One moment later, an answering whistle came from just down the slope, and when he turned his head, he caught sight of Jean trekking his way, another rabbit slung over one shoulder and his gun over the other.

“Not bad,” Eren called down to him, taking a sip from his water skin and turning toward the horizon, giving his watch a glance. About eleven. Once he felt Jean’s presence beside him, he asked, “Three days, do you think?”

“‘Til when?” Jean responded, and followed Eren’s gaze. “Oh, until we get to Maria? I wouldn’t bet on it. Maybe four, if we hurry. But we’re gonna move a bit slower with two of us.” He caught sight of the watch. “Hey, you’re wearing it.”

“The watch? I wear it all the time, don’t be ridiculous.” He nodded slowly. “Anyway… I’d hoped to get all this done in maybe sixty days by myself. How long do you think we’d take together?”

Jean frowned. “I don’t know. Sixty days sounds like plenty, in my opinion. Did you factor in resting days?”

“Every fourth day outside the walls.”

“Sounds reasonable.” With that, Jean left his side and made for his own horse. “Let’s aim for sixty. If it takes us a little longer, we’ll know why.”

-

It was weird, being in these old, abandoned houses. Most had been crushed by titans at some point or another, but in every village they’d come across, there was at least one still standing. In a way, it reminded Jean of how, though it seemed so long ago, it had only been seventeen years since life in Wall Maria had become impossible.

The air was musty, the floorboards creaked. Most of the windows were broken. There was a sofa, and there were pots and pans in the kitchen. There was a rug and a little bowl where some small creature might have eaten. It was the most bizarre feeling, being in a place where somebody, someday, had lived, had raised their children, and yet at the same time was so completely dead.

“Eren,” he shouted, leaning out one window, careful to avoid shards of glass. “This one’s intact, we could probably sleep here.”

“I’ll be right there,” came the response, and Eren came around the corner, leading both horses. Jean ducked back into the house and went up the stairs, testing each step before putting his weight on it, and investigated the upstairs. It was smaller than the first floor, with just two rooms - one was smaller, obviously intended for children, if the petite bed and crib were any indication, and the other, the master bedroom, held a queen-size. Jean bit his lip.

He definitely didn’t want to be the one who had to cram himself into the child’s bed, but he couldn’t imagine sacrificing Eren to that fate, either.

Downstairs, he heard the front door open. “Jean?”

“Up here,” he called down, leaning over the banister. “Careful on the stairs.”

“Two floors,” he heard Eren mutter, “Wow. Life in the lap of luxury.”

He tried to pretend he hadn’t heard this. He knew Eren hadn’t had a terribly easy life, even in Shiganshina - one-story house, all wooden furniture, nothing on what even Jean had grown up with. Instead, he listened to the creaking of the steps as Eren came up.

The first thing out of Eren’s mouth when he reached the landing, when he saw the children’s room, was, “Oh. I hope the littles got out okay.”

“Seventeen years ago?”

“Why not?” he questioned, crossing into the room, looking around. “Looks like they must have been happy here. I hope they’re still happy now.”

Jean found himself leaning on the doorframe, watching Eren smiling wistfully as he took in his surroundings. Did he want children? Jean had never thought to ask, but now he realized that it would make sense if he did. He was always so indulgent towards new recruits, and towards the kids that asked for autographs, and towards all the smaller people that looked up to him and Jean and the other veterans. The image came to him of Eren Jaeger play-wrestling with some toddler, a tremendous grin on both their faces.

“I’ll take that bed,” Jean murmured, tearing his eyes away from Eren. “There’s a bigger one in the other room.”

“Huh? Oh, I don’t think either of us could take that one. Look, it’s right under a broken window. There might be glass.”

Oh.

Eren turned and pushed past him. “How big’s the other one? We might be able to share it.”

“I could… There’s a sofa downstairs, right? I’ll sleep on that.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! This is big enough. It’ll be like when we were trainees and Shadis made us sleep together as punishment for fighting.” Eren let out a laugh, looking back at Jean, seeming to expect him to join in. Upon seeing his face, however, he sobered up quickly. “Unless you want to go downstairs, I guess. I mean, I won’t stop you.”

Jean held his gaze for another moment, then forced a grin. “Nah. I’m just scared you’ll kick me out of bed again.”

Eren relaxed and gave another laugh. “I won’t kick you out if you don’t snore in my ear, like you always did!”

“I won’t snore in your ear if you don’t cling to me like a squirrel on a branch.”

Eren held his hands up in surrender. “You’ve got me there. No squirrel-clinging.”

(He did squirrel-cling, but Jean didn’t make any attempt to push him away. Instead, he slowly caressed Eren’s hair and angled his head so that, if he did happen to snore, it wouldn’t be right in his ear.)

-

“Jean,” Eren rasped, voice breaking, and tried again. “Jean! Stop!”

Jean, who was just a little ahead of him, brought his horse to a halt and turned quickly to stare back at him. “Eren? What’s wrong?”

Instead of offering a reply, Eren dropped off of his horse’s back and loped forward, stopping as abruptly as Jean had a mere moment earlier. In front of him was a terribly anticlimactic pile of rocks.

“It’s the wall,” he whispered, and he felt his shoulders shaking.

His vision blurred. Why was he crying? He was happy. He was so happy. Why was he crying?

When had Jean gotten off his horse? When had he wrapped Eren in his arms?

“Shhh,” Jean calmed him, swaying slowly back and forth. “It’s okay, Eren. I’m here. It’s okay.”

Eren sniffed miserably and returned the embrace.

-

They couldn’t be even a fraction as loud as they used to be, but the twist Jean got in his gut whenever he saw Eren’s tears was getting progressively more painful every time they made an appearance.

He tried as hard as he could not to let people see these days; Jean hadn’t even realized it happened nearly as often as it used to until a couple nights into the trip. It was odd, how much he was re-learning about Eren with all the time they were spending together. He’d thought there was very little he didn’t know regarding Eren. After all, it certainly wasn’t as if they weren’t spending time together anyway - they were directly above and below each other in the chain of command, and they exchanged friendly conversation at frequent intervals. Somehow he’d come to the conclusion that, since the defeat of the titans, Eren had become more stable as a person.

The night was oddly chilly for the height of summer, and there was little shelter for them in their little pocket of the forest. He could hear leaves rustling, insects chirping, and Eren sniffling.

It took him a long moment for him to decide whether he should pretend he was asleep. He could do it—just let Eren cry it out. Sometimes, that’s what he preferred for himself. But…weren’t they close enough that they could tell each other when something was wrong?

“Eren?” he rasped, and heard Eren’s sobs come to an abrupt halt.

His response was slow, cautious. “Jean?” he murmured. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

It was a good front. His voice was steady, if a little bit rough. “I know you were crying,” Jean informed him. “You don’t have to stop just because I can hear you.”

There came a long pause. Eren sniffled again and sat up. There was another long pause.

“I had a dream,” he finally said.

Jean let him have his silence for a moment. He broke it gently. “Do you wanna talk about it?” He turned his head toward Eren, who was looking back at him. His eyes were mercurial in the light of the moon. His tears looked like his irises had overflowed onto his cheeks.

Eren blinked, once, twice, and he wiped his tears away only for them to quickly replace themselves. “I dreamt about Bertholdt,” he mumbled, numb. “You know. When he shot himself.”

The memory made Jean’s own eyes sting. “Oh,” he inhaled sharply.

“The silence, too, before and after that.” Eren was looking at the sky now. “How he got so quiet. I wondered, back then, why he would never say anything. I wondered  _how,_  when we had all the best interrogators on him.”

Jean turned his head back up toward the sky and felt salty, hot tears slide down his cheeks, falling into his ears. “I always thought,” he confessed, “Of all our comrades…he died the worst death.”

Eren looked at him.

“He watched… Whatever happened,” he explained, “with Reiner and Ymir, that is. And he came back, and Annie was assimilated onto our side, and the Military Police as we’d always known it had been disbanded. He never, ever knew what to do when he didn’t have direction, not even when we were trainees. He was so… lost.”

Eren had buried his head in his arms. It took a second for Jean to realize he was sobbing again.

“Eren?”

“I can’t do that,” Eren said, throatily. “I can’t just stick a label on who died the worst death. I know who I’d least want to die like. But the worst death? That’s…all of them. They were all horrible.”

Jean felt his heart sink. “I’m…sorry. I’m sorry, Eren.”

Eren’s breaths were shuddering. He was curled into a ball, knees pulled up to his face, hands covering his head.

The little noises were like a beckoning hand.

He rolled out of his sleeping bag and crawled over to Eren, wrapping his arms around him, feeling the pulsing rhythm of his sobs against his chest.

“I hate this,” Eren whispered. “I hate being left behind.”

-

“Okay,” Eren announced. “First things first - We don’t have to get anything done tomorrow, so we are gonna figure out what the fuck you brought with us, and try to figure out if any of it actually has any practical use.”

“I’m gonna find a use for the twine,” Jean insisted. “I swear it.”

“I really doubt that,” Eren chuckled, and pulled open the first of the saddlebags. “What’s this tin of cookies doing here?”

“It’s not cookies - it’s got some jerky in it.”

Eren pouted jokingly. “Oh, come on, I got my hopes up for nothing?”

Jean rolled his eyes and turned his focus back to his work, sketching out some of the landmarks and plants they’d caught sight of over the course of the day. It was something Eren had intended to do himself, but Jean was significantly more talented at realistically depicting things as he remembered them than Eren was, and also took more pleasure in doing it. Eren had been left to the rougher duties; hunting, gathering, and keeping things organized.

“Bullets,” Eren muttered to himself, continuing his investigation of Jean’s bag, “Yet you didn’t think to bring an actual gun.”

“Hey,” Jean objected, “If I run out on your rifle, at least I’ve got backup.”

“And they’re actually the right caliber. Good on you, Jean. For once in your life.”

He expected anger, but only received an exasperated smile and a shake of Jean’s head. “Do you really need to do that tonight? Why not just sit back for a little while? We finally have some time to relax.”

“What about you? Why do you have to be drawing right now?”

“Gotta do it while it’s still fresh in my head,” Jean mumbled. “Come on, just… Do something else. You’re always working so hard.”

Eren considered this for a long while, and just stared out the mouth of their enclosure. Finally, he found himself wondering about Jean’s drawings. He wondered what Jean had found important enough to document.

Eren dragged himself up to Jean’s side, and he was so engrossed that it took a minute for him to realize Eren was there. He stiffened a bit, and his hand paused, but he didn’t object.

Eren slowly drifted to sleep, watching the strokes of Jean’s hand, leaning against his companion without really meaning to.

-

One day, as they followed a river along its bank, hoping that it might lead them to the ocean, Eren confessed something.

“You know how I told you that there was one specific person that I really wouldn’t want to die like?” he asked, sounding as if he was trying to sound casual and failing.

Jean glanced over at him. The horses were walking, now, because the riverbank was muddy and difficult to navigate otherwise. “Yeah.” He said it quietly. Anything louder might have broken Eren, forced yet more tears out of him, and he didn’t want that.

Eren watched the river flow past. “It’s Connie.”

Jean watched Eren.

“Because we were  _so close._  Three days, Jean, three days until the final one died, and he was insisting the whole time that he could still fight them.”

A tiny branch whipped Jean’s face, reminding him to watch where he was going.

Eren didn’t even take notice. “I don’t understand,” he muttered, “how somebody who never once let the titans get to him could die from tumors.”

Jean ached to touch him.

-

“Jean?”

His companion looked up from where he was contemplating a sketch. “Yeah?”

“You still got that twine? I wanna tie my hair up.”

A sly grin crept over Jean’s features. “I might have to make you beg for it.”

Eren huffed. “Fine. Can you cut my hair, instead?”

“Finally seeing the practicality of an undercut, are you?”

“You are just so proud of yourself today. I don’t like it. Go back to being miserable at the prospect of spending time with me.”

The smirk was quickly replaced by a frown. “Is that really what you think I feel about you?”

Eren’s smile dropped off, too. “Not really.”

“I’m serious - you think I dislike you?”

“No.”

“Good.” Jean stopped abruptly. He turned back to his sketch. “It’s in my bag.”

“It was a joke,” Eren explained.

“I get it.”

“I don’t dislike you.”

“I know.”

“I trust you. A lot, actually. It’s just—when we were trainees together—”

“Eren,” Jean interrupted, “I get it. It was a joke. I’m sorry. I was being weird about it. I don’t even know why it bothered me. Get yourself some twine.”

“Jean,” Eren said, seriously, dropping to his knees in front of him, “There is not a single person alive that I trust more than you. I mean it.”

If Jean hadn’t already suffered a mild sunburn on his cheeks, Eren would have sworn he was blushing. He twitched forward a bit, staring intensely into Eren’s eyes. Something seemed to change as Eren watched him, but he couldn’t pinpoint what.

“Me neither,” Jean choked out.

-

“Jean?” Eren said, for what must have been the millionth time, and it made Jean’s heart skip a beat.

He took a deep breath. This—this  _weirdness_  that had been passing through him over the past few days—wanting to touch Eren, getting so breathless when Eren said his name—was something he hadn’t experienced in years. Not since before the battle of Trost. Twelve years, it had been.

“Jeeeeeaaaaaaan,” Eren repeated, stretching his name out in the most irritating way possible.  **  
**

He wasn’t going to pretend he didn’t know what it was. It seemed, after so many years of having to force affectionate feeling down inside him in fear of having the ones he felt it for leaving him in the worst way possible, he’d somehow reverted back to being a lovestruck teenager. Well, better now than some other time—after all, the titans were gone and he could finally settle down without fear of having everything ripped away from him—but…

“Jean, I am covered in blood up to the elbows and I am not afraid to get it on you.”

“Fuck, Eren,” Jean huffed in exasperation, “What? I thought you were gutting that deer you caught.”

“I am. Care to watch?”

Jean looked up from his inventory to take in Eren’s shit-eating grin and the animal’s deconstructed carcass. “No. What did you want?”

Eren picked up the deer’s entrails and carried them a few meters away, kicking up some dirt to bury them beneath, raising his voice so that Jean could hear despite the distance. “Do you think they’ve picked replacements for us?”

“Back home, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe.”

“Who do you think they’d pick?”

Jean considered this for a moment, and groaned. “I hope it’s not fucking Abel.”

Eren barked out a laugh. “Oh, here it comes. The ‘Fucking Abel’ speech.”

“Don’t laugh at me! My dislike of her is a very serious matter.”

“Who disturbs me over even the smallest issue?” Eren declared, in a poor approximation of Jean’s angry voice. “Fucking Abel.”

“Please stop.”

“Who kisses up to absolutely everyone?” Eren continued, striking a stiff pose. “Fucking Abel.”

“You make an awful me.”

“Who literally tries to kiss my second-in-command?” Eren growled, and exaggerated a shudder. “Fucking Abel.”

Jean let himself grin at this. “I still cannot believe she tried to do that.”

“I still can’t believe you didn’t take the opportunity to demote her!”

“Much as I trust you, Eren, and believe that she’s just oily enough to do it, I still only had your word on it. Nobody else saw.”

“True,” Eren grumbled, and continued, “Just a minute, I’ve gotta wash my hands off.”

Jean watched him stalk off, toward the spring they’d caught sight of a minute or two away. He slowly shook his head, and couldn’t get the smile off of his face.

“Of all the people,” he murmured to himself.

-

Jean had woken him up that morning by falling backwards into a bush and swearing very loudly. It had been an abrupt awakening, but at least it had been amusing.

Nothing, it seemed, was allowed to be boring when Jean was with him.

It wasn’t for lack of trying; Jean was a military commander, after all, and schedules and structure were two things he had a taste for. Despite this, in recent days, his penchant for overreaction from their trainee days had made a reappearance.

“Oh, hey,” he muttered to himself during a break next to a stream, waiting for Jean to come back from hunting, “Wild carrots.”

Jean liked carrots, didn’t he? Well, Eren did. What a nice treat they would make to share. He harvested some, and was sitting on the bank, rinsing them, when Jean got back.

“Hey, what’s this?” Jean inquired, crouching next to him, running a hand over the stems. Eren was still bent over the water, so he was startled when he felt a strong grip take his arm, forcing him up, forcing him to turn and look into Jean’s eyes.

“Did you eat any?!” Jean was shouting, face panicked, maybe two inches from Eren’s as he clung to Eren’s arms. Eren could feel him shaking, could feel his own startled heartbeat resound in his chest. “Did you eat any?! Please,  _please,_  tell me you didn’t eat any, it might not be too late if we just—Oh, god, just tell me you didn’t eat any—”

Eren was terrified into silence for a long time, just watching Jean scream in terror at him, watching—was that a tear? A tear, slipping down Jean’s cheek.

“I didn’t,” he whispered, and Jean didn’t seem to hear. “I didn’t eat it, Jean!” He repeated it, louder, and Jean finally stopped, panting, staring at him.

“No? You swear?” He sounded small. He sounded like a child. He sounded like a boy who had lost far too many loved ones.

“I swear,” Eren mumbled, and suddenly Jean’s face was right up in his, and he realized he was being kissed.

“Oh, god,” he heard Jean sob, as he pulled Eren’s body close, “Oh, god, you have to be the biggest—carrots are the second thing they warned us about in survival, you ass—right after berries—”

He was babbling right in Eren’s ear, but Eren’s mental processes had ceased function before he could take any of it in.

“Jean,” he gasped, and his hands grasped gently at the back of Jean’s shirt. Jean had kissed him. It was a heat of the moment thing - he wasn’t sure Jean had even realized it happened, yet—but, suddenly, Eren thought of how he’d feel if Jean had a brush with death.

He’d probably kiss him, too, in relief, or maybe madness.

What did  _that_  mean?

-

“Did you just kiss me?”

Finally, the words registered in Jean’s mind. It took a split second more for it to occur to him what he’d done, and the implication of the action. “Shit,” he gasped, pushing back, taking in the shocked expression on Eren’s face. “Shit. Shit, I—I’m sorry, Eren, I—I wasn’t ready for this, I was—I’m years and years away from being ready for this—”

Eren’s eyes were wide, even by his standards. “Um. You mean…kissing me?”

“Yes! I’m not—fuck, I only just realized I liked you, okay? I’m—come on, we need to move on—It wasn’t just kissing you, okay, it was—you, dying, too—let’s just leave, leave those there—”

“You like me?”

Jean pushed away and strode toward his horse. “Come on, we’re losing daylight, we’ve gotta—”

-

Man, horse, man, horse, was the order in which they walked along the cliff’s edge. Eren was in front, leading Clyde, when he briefly glanced up and stopped dead. That blue ring on the horizon…

“Jean, what do you reckon—”

He cut off, suddenly, immediately, as if his airways had closed.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was turning back, staring at Jean in excitement. “Jean!” he shouted, unable to control himself in his triumph. “Jean, look, Jean, it’s—we’re there, we’ve made it!”

Jean blinked at him, and turned to look in the direction Eren had indicated. “Oh,” he breathed, eyes widening in understanding. “Oh, god, Eren, that’s…”

“The ocean,” Eren completed the statement. He was aquiver with emotion. “It’s the ocean, Jean.”

-

Eren grasped his arm, surprisingly gently, and Jean turned to face him, still unable to look him in the eye.

“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know why I did it, let’s just—”

“Look at me,” he said, softly, and Jean did. His eyes were wide with confusion, and…something else. “Jean. I—I’m not going to pretend that didn’t surprise me. But you don’t have to be scared. Okay? I’m not mad. Not at all. Look, we’ve—we’ve been together so long, fifteen years, I—If I didn’t love you, even a little, it would be inhuman. You’ve seen me at my best and my worst. And you stayed, through my best and my worst. Not loving you would be like…not loving my own mother. You know? You don’t have to be scared. I don’t—I don’t really get it, either.”

Jean’s heart soared. What Eren said was true - They’d seen so much of each other, all of each other’s positives and negatives, all each other’s favorite things. They’d been together forever, and they’d be together forever. They’d never be alone. They’d never been alone.

-

“Eren!” Jean called, a bit of a laugh behind his voice. “Slow down, you’re gonna go right off another cliff like that!”

“We can get there in half an hour if we hurry, Jean, come on!”

“You don’t need to hurry, it’s gonna be there no matter what—”

Eren felt Clyde moving underneath him, heard sticks snapping beneath the horses’ hooves, and knew Jean was right. He leaned back, tugging the reins gently, and let Jean catch up.

“Sorry,” he panted, grinning from ear to ear, “Sorry, I’m just—I’m so excited, you know? This is my dream, and Armin’s, and Mikasa’s. I’m just…”

Jean’s face mirrored his own. “Mine, too,” he said, “If it’s gonna make you this happy…then it’s my dream, too.”

-

Eren came forward, hesitantly reaching his other arm out for Jean without seeming sure of what he was doing.

Obeying the silent plea, Jean stepped toward him and pressed their lips together.

-

The slapping sound of waves on a beach took over Eren’s consciousness, the salty scent of ocean water tingling in his sinuses. He was distantly aware of Jean trotting along beside him, of his similar expressions of exhilaration.

He glanced to the side, taking in Jean’s breathless gaze, rewarded with Jean’s eyes on him, and it was that moment that they emerged from the forest, suddenly surrounded by golden sand and glistening blue water, extending into the distance, blue, blue, deep blue, until it touched the sky. He slid off his mount in a sort of daze.

Waves, capped with white, crashed over and over again, calling him, and he watched the rippling surface of the ocean for a long moment before suddenly he raced forward, whooping, laughing, calling back to Jean—“Get over here, you massive egghead!”—and went a few feet into the water, fully clothed.

He jumped up and down, giggling like he hadn’t in years, and kicked the water, sending it up in an arc of clear, glistening beauty, turning to Jean to see his expression. He was still on his horse, staring down at Eren from up the slope.

Eren spread his arms. “Jean,” he positively  _sang,_  matching the tune of the wind and water, “Look. We’ve done it.”

Jean was staring at him—through him—at the air in front of him—and his expression was confused, questioning. His jaw hung slightly open. Eren saw him mouth a word, and it looked oddly like someone’s name.

As excited as he was, this was certainly bizarre behavior. “Jean?” he called, experimentally, and his companion jumped.

“Oh, sorry, Eren, I—” he started, and Eren drew closer to hear better. “I…did you see that?”

Eren found himself laughing. “There’s an awful lot to see here, Jean. You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

Jean frowned down at him. “I…I swear I just saw Mikasa.”

“Mikasa?” His mirth drained away. How bizarre. “Did she—what was she doing?”

Dazed, mumbling, Jean answered. “She said…something. I don’t…”

Eren found himself reaching up, patting Jean’s knee. “We’ve been traveling a long time, Jean,” he soothed, “Come on. Let’s tie up the horses and spend some time just watching the water. Okay? You’re just tired. Maybe you’re a little overheated, too.”

Jean nodded slowly, and let Eren help him down off the horse. Eren spread a little blanket for him on the sand, sitting him on it before tying the horses at the edge of the forest. Upon his return, he brought food and water, urging Jean to take a drink.

Jean stared at him over the water skin.

Eren frowned curiously. “What?”

He waited, and then shook his head, a look of adoration on his face.

“I’m just glad I’m with you."

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr link;  
> http://missplacemat.tumblr.com/post/94111652783/gypsy-oneshot


End file.
